Case Work on Viragos

This one makes me a little nervous as it involves the back-and-forth shipping of empty cases: bulky and fragile. Be sure to empty all fittings and just send in the basre aluminum with the cast-in iron parts. Bolt them securely together. Lay multiple layers of bubble wrap around them. Fill with styrofoam "peanuts" or expanding foam. Anything that must be removed or scraped off on our end will incur more costs to you -- if you expect to get them back.

What we'll do:

Chemical dip (unless you ask us to skip it) to strip all grease and dirt. Blasting with several grades of beads, ending with walnut shells. All oil passages will be blocked at this stage. Optionally, we'll powder-coat black or silver inside; your choice outside. Your main bearing bores will be hard chromed down to 90mm ID and the 6308 bearings of your choice will be seated. Bearings that have oiling channels and oil holes could have passages bored into the transmission feed lines in order to make sure that there is no starvation problems as stock these bearings are fed by splash. Case spigots bored to appropriate girth for your application. We'll look into a maximum bore cut with snug-fit aluminum rings for smaller sizes included. All potential obstacles to long stroke cranks will be fly cut off; all iffy protrusions. New dowels for oil passages and a plugged tap hole for those that want to run an oil cooler from near the pressure release, rather than off the filter cover.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. No prices set. Reckon on $65 each way on shipping. I must get quotes on plating and powder coating and prices on various bearings. All of these procedures take place elsewhere. Before you ask, do NOT ship complete engines for us to build. This location is not zoned for it. And we can't afford to farm it out. Shipping and transportation add up and no matter how good of friends we are with third parties, they won't work for free.

The rubber tensioners and slippers inside the cam chain tunnels have -- or supersede to -- the same part numbers on all 700 and larger XV engines, On the external plunger, the numbers tell the same story, except: the black units are different, but inter-changeable; the RH/RJ model has a different number (which is now discontinued), yet the other plungers work in them without problem. During assembly, or whenever you must adjust cam-timing, the fixing screw on the plunger must be turned counter-clockwise as far as it will go. This draws the bar that actually contacts the rubber tensioner back into the body. The plunger is then installed; the cam timed and secured; then the screw is released, and the bar pushes out to the tensioner as far as it can; the chain is tensioned. As the chain stretches, or the tensioners or slippers wear, the bar extends further to maintain pressure against its tensioner. It retracts ONLY if its retraction screw is turned. It is not dynamic; it is not lubricated by the engine's oil supply. Internally, there is very little: a clock-like spring and a coil spring bearing against the bar. It is not serviceable except that one can soak it in oil whilst giving the screw a few twists. If it fails, the bar remains in the extended position, and it will prove difficult to re-time the cam. It is best then to replace with a stock assembly: good used units are plentiful and cheap.

These are out of a '90 Virago 1100. Checking part numbers, we find that they fit ALL XV series models, 700 through 1100, '81 through '98.